Why? Because features like Instagram Stories make it easy for brands to show themselves in a fun and interesting light. It’s easier than ever to humanize a brand.

Tarte Cosmetics does this well. The brand regularly travels to exotic places for photo shoots of new products or company bonding trips. And when they travel, they bring their followers along on the adventure.

From showing products that they’ve staged for shoots in Bora Bora to showing team members on a mother/daughter retreat in Hawaii, Tarte uses Instagram Stories to give followers insight into what it means to be a “Tartlet.”

Lululemon is another great example. Being a popular fitness clothing brand, the Instagram team at lululemon regularly takes followers through their own personal fitness journeys using Stories.

From live yoga practices to cooking healthy meals, the brand gives great insight into how employees are working toward the same goals as their followers.

Just recently, lululemon took viewers on one employee’s daily run through Austin, Texas.

You experience the route she took, the music she was listening to, and the trials she had along the way. Instagram Stories like this make it very easy to relate to a brand.

2. Take advantage of Instagram Stories features to interact with your audience

With features like geographical location tagging, hashtags, polls, gifs, stickers, and more, growing your following and facilitating brand engagement is simple. You just need a little creativity.

Features like hashtags and geotagging make it easy for users to find you based on location and interest.

If you’re a local business, geotagging is vital when it comes to your interaction on Instagram Stories.

Each time you enter a city, Instagram aggregates Stories that other users have geotagged in your location.

This is a great opportunity for small businesses and city tourism brands as they can utilize geotagging to show Instagram users exciting things taking place around them.

Carrigan Farms, which is in the small town of Mooresville, North Carolina, takes advantage of geotagging to show users in the area the fun activities visitors can take part in at the farm.

With a huge water quarry on the property, Carrigan Farms visitors can jump off of cliffs into the deep, clean water.

Capturing and sharing videos of these activities on the farm’s Story with geotagging brings awareness to others in the area of the fun they could have on the farm.

Hashtags make it easy for users to find your content based on topic.

Many brands or celebrities will have a hashtag that they use across social media so that anyone looking for content about the brand or person can easily find it.

For instance, Justin Timberlake just recently canceled shows up north due to the massive snow storms.

In addition to his publicity team notifying showgoers of the cancellation via email and his website, he posted to his Instagram Story.

Using hashtag #MOTWTOUR, he added another way to notify his fans who have been following along with his tour on social media about the cancellation.

Items like gifs and stickers enable brands to add to images and videos that they share on Instagram Stories.

Lake Norman Surf Co., which is on Lake Norman in North Carolina, offers wakesurfing lessons. The brand regularly uses stickers and gifs to demonstrate their light attitude.

Just recently, Lake Norman Surf Co. shared a video of the lake water and used a sticker to show the temperature. They did this to remind their followers that wakesurfing season is coming.

The poll feature, which Instagram recently rolled out, is a creative way to create easy interactions with followers.

As a marketer, you always want feedback from our prospects and customers.

Polls on Instagram Stories provide a way for you to get that feedback from fans while making your audience feel like your brand is empowering them.

Companies can utilize polls to ask fans anything!

Ask about their opinions on new products, how often they’d like to receive brand emails, their favorite kinds of sales, what kind of content they’d like to see from your brand on social media, and so on.

Perhaps you’re a clothing company, and you’re wondering if your fans are ready to see summer transitional pieces or if they are still looking for winter/spring clothing. In that case, use a poll.

Or maybe you’re an outdoor adventure gear company, and you’re wondering if your fans prefer to see behind-the-scenes stories from product shoots of if they prefer to just see the new products.

Ask them in a poll.

For instance, HomeGoods and Kurgo will often show items in their shops and ask followers which color they prefer.

This is an interactive way to get followers interested in new product rollouts. They might come in and purchase the color of the item that they chose from the poll.

Some sports teams and leagues will even use polls that ask fans who they think will win the big game.

These are fun ways for followers to engage with a brand and feel important.

3. Host Instagram takeovers with Instagram influencers

Adding Instagram influencers to your social media marketing strategy is an invaluable way to both increase your follower base and drive sales.

You can classify Instagram influencers in the micro (1,000 to 100,000 followers) level or the macro (100,000+ followers) level.

1. Share your web content to generate leads and sales.

And generating remarkable content is important for SEO, lead generation, lead nurturing, customer retention, and lots more.

Instagram gives marketers another great way to get their content in front of new prospects, existing leads, and customers. How?

Brands can share a relevant photo or video with Instagram Stories and link to any piece of content – a blog, a page on the site, a YouTube video, an e-book, and more!

This lets a brand bring users back to their website to interact with the company on a deeper level. And it works.

During March of 2017, over 120 million Instagram users visited a website, got directions, or contacted a business to learn more about them from Instagram. That’s a lot of interaction with businesses in one month!

Explore Canada does an excellent job of using links in Instagram Stories to drive users to its blogs.

The tourism company partners with many country-wide travel groups and implements links on Instagram Stories to share travel guides.

The example below uses links in Stories to bring users to a blog post that offers tips for planning a trip to the Great White North. At the end of the blog, they give the reader an opportunity to reach out to a travel agent, thus securing the lead.

These types of tactics are great for getting users to engage with your website and convert to a lead.

In this example, Pottery Barn uses Stories to show beautiful pictures of new products from the collection with Jamie Durie, HGTV’s beloved Australian landscape artist.

After enticing users with a few behind-the-scenes pictures of the collection, they invite users to ‘See More’ by clicking the link to browse products.

Target also uses Instagram Stories to promote impulse buys.

Across the brand’s two platforms, Target and Target Style, the company shows products that designers have staged. Followers can to swipe up and purchase.

2. Utilize Instagram influencer and brand ambassador endorsements.

Let’s come back to Instagram influencers. Right now, 95% of influencers report Instagram as their favorite social media platform to work on.

So, how does influencer marketing on Instagram work?

In a nutshell, brands build relationships with Instagram influencers and brand ambassadors by offering them a free or discounted product to promote with Instagram Stories and in their feed.

They also give the influencer a coupon code so that their followers can shop at a discount.

It’s relatively easy to attach a dollar amount to enlisting an Instagram influencer, too. You can use digital marketing tactics like custom URLs or give influencers tracking URLs to use in their Stories.

While enlisting Instagram influencers is common throughout all industries, marketers especially use them within the beauty, fashion, and fitness communities.

Past Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise contestant Jen Saviano is constantly promoting brands as an Instagram influencer through her stories.